"I energized an enervated Republican electorate while deflecting accusations to the contrary, I withstood insane hyperbolic attacks, I withstood hostile interviews but also interviewed with a sympathetic Gretta Van Susteren, I was driven around the country in a big bus and met thousands of people, I debated, I was tutored extensively in national and global affairs, I serindipitously projected a career unexpectedly, parlaying meager gubinatorial experience to a chance at a senate seat, I pissed off not just feminists but even politically uninvolved women unbelievably and irrationally and created an entirely new dialog, albiet a vicious one, I displayed, in vivid open vivisection, an entirely different way to be, I exposed obscene hatred for what it is. I created a vortex with my name on it. I started something that startles you and that you're not going to like."

Gee Moe, get off the couch and change the channel you knucklehead. And Larry, Governor Palin is not the person who makes programming decisions. Curly, she did go back to Alaska. Shemp, simmer down. Curley Joe, man up and quit complaining.

What really hurts must be knowing that, you know, she's *got* a job. She is actually in charge of things and makes decisions and has to work with her legislature to get things done, and she meets with other governors who are governors like she is in order to do governor sorts of things.

I could have sworn that sometime over the past week I read an article/study about the effect of SNL and various cable shows on perceptions and even voting patterns (at least in some demographics), but for the life of me I can't quickly put my finger on it.

Pawlenty made a great joke (or maybe just repeated an old one, I don't get around much). I think the real job of these governors will be to deal with their public employees pension "shortfalls", and how they can rape the remaining private sector, which has no pension guarantee, to satisfy their real constituency (including university professors). But that's OT.

On topic: since it's about Palin, when will the Michael troll appear? I give him 5 minutes.

Family, friends, education, marketable skills, career, owns a home and is likely saving for her retirement.

She is a role model for kids to follow. Althouse is too.

I have few visitors, one or two friends, no marketable skills, rent a house that doesn't even have a working fire extinquisher as required by law, and spending every penny i have at a rate of 15K per year. At age 75 I might have to finally get a job in fast food places exst and are still hiring old people.

Ten 14 year old kids in the Haggia Sophia thought i was beautiful and wanted to take my picture with their cell phone. Big bad noses don't matter in istanbul. Most turks have one.

Althouse and Palin you got so much up on me except my height. 6 fooot tall in heels.

There will always be a market for comedians/comediennes who mock politicians, because everyone likes to make fun of politicians, and if you can do it well (and let's not be coy, Fey's Palin is hilariously close to the mark), you deserve all the money you can earn.

I think she is doing all this because she dreads going back to Alaska.

Perhaps, scouting out her opportunities.

Afterall it is 5 degrees in Alaska today and don't they get like 5 hours of light? I don't know, that would kind of depress me. The opportunity to find hog must be difficult. Unless, you run across a cute moose.

Like my grandfather used to say:"you can put 4 guys in a tent and they'll get along fine, but you put 4 women in a 4 bedroom 4 bath condo overlooking the ocean in West palm Beach and you'll have a war in 48 hours"

Defending Palin against smears is not the symptom to which I'm referring.

(You know, I still haven't clicked over to Andrew Sullivan, and I've continued my boycott of the Atlantic in all its manifestations**, along with a couple of other places, since the morning of Sept. 1, when I strongly expressed my contempt for those smearing Palin in a comment here at Althouse, reproduced as a blogpost elsewhere.

**The one exception is Megan McCardle's blog, which I did retain and sometimes read in feed and have clicked over to maybe two or three times in that time period.)

In any case any one at all is interested in that post, and what I had to say about Sarah Palin then, here's the link (the Althouse post in which the comment originally is linked therein, at top). I stand by all of it, except that I admire Palin's grit even more, now, though I also feel validated regarding my reference to "opening wines before their time."

It's one of the few longer-form things I've ever posted over there, mostly because I felt passionate enough about the topic to devote the space.

Orolo, relax. I'm people watching - her and those who swirl around her - pro and con. "The gift that keeps on giving" just means that it never seems to stop and a plus, seems to keep the traffic flowing around here.

I don't see the comparison in the Obama/Sarah thing as far as supporters go, reader.

For one thing...there is a huge difference in the amount of negative media attention. Sarah was attacked viciously, over and over (and the NYT still want to poke at her). Not so with Obama.

Darcy, I agree, said almost exactly the same thing on a previous thread.

I also took delight in Palin's Tina Fey comment. I wish we'd seen more of the humor she showed in the RNC speech throughout the campaign. But I'll just add that to my long list of regrets from this election.

I thought it was rude that the governor of Texas seemed to cut her press conference short. That was uncalled for. He cut right in front of her. He is nasty and I get a gay vibe from him. He has had hog in his mouth. I can tell.

"It is so funny that Althouse can not leave our Sarah alone. She just keeps scratching at her.

Envy is a terrible thing."

What an utterly stupid statement to make. Are you saying those who criticize palin are doing so simply out of envy? You dont think people have legitimate issues with her? And clearly you havent read Anne's blog for long as she's had a lot more praise than criticism for Palin in the past. If you hold Ann in such low esteem why do you even visit her blog? Palin's supporters like to talk about Palin derangement syndrome but what I've noticed on this blog is a similar derangement syndrome which kicks in whenever something unflattering is said about Palin. So many people throw a hissy fit. Its incredible.

Darcy didn't put words in my mouth or use the word "dismiss" in the way you did, and she also sought to understand (whether she agreed or not) the actual point being made rather than putting a spin on it.

Sarah Palin will never hold an office higher than governor unless she either replaces Ted Stevens in the Senate or takes on a cabinet post in a future Republican administration. (I was tempted to say "if there is one," but there will be -- the pendulum swings, the pendulum always swings.)

Reason: too many women look at Todd and realize that in their wildest fantasies they could never get a guy like him -- handsome, champion athlete, willing house husband whenever needed, and totally confident in his manhood -- to bother looking twice at them. And they are jealous. Really, really jealous. Examples include Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd, and just about any woman who writes for the NYT or appears on CNN. By contrast, nice to see that Camille Paglia is confident of her own womanhood.

(OK, minzo you're right -- Palin's position on abortion is extreme even by my standards, though I respect that she is willing to abide by the consequences of her beliefs. Aborting Trig or arranging an abortion for Bristol might have been convenient but she does as she says. Unlike, for instance, RFK Jr., who is all for renewable energy until a wind farm might spoil part of the view from his mansion.)

To a degree, in a very specific way, there IS a similarity ... but it doesn't lie in the defending, per se. She ought to be defended against smears. The problem comes in two ways:

1) When the defense becomes reflexive, and by that I mean "defending against smears" morphs into "perceiving most, if not every, criticism as a smear" to "perceiving most, if not every, critic, as a 'smear-er'" and then falling into the trap of defending from that mindset. From there, it's just a quick walk to losing the ability to view a candidate with clear eyes and reading malign intent into every criticism--worse, perceived criticism (a number, though not all, of Althouse's recent posts fall into that category, I think--of that candidate. Any and all attacks on those of opposing views then become fair game. How dare you attack my candidate! He/she is wonderful! He/She is the future!

Yeah, I do perceive some similarities, in some specific, circumscribed ways, among some specific subsets of Obama and Palin supporters. I do feel there are a number of commenters here who fall into those subsets. Both subsets.

I don't see that as wholesale conflation, myself, but I do understand that people will disagree and object.

I do think that she threatens the lefty feminists. It's such a sad thing to see, and I'll say it again...women *really* lost big time during this election season, with the treatment of both Hillary and Sarah.

Knox: You need to read that sentence again specifically in connection to the comment to which it was written in response. It's referring to a subset, not all Palin supporters. It's not a standalone sentence in an out-of-the-blue standalone comment. It's part of a back and forth, with kibbitzing along the way.

Look, I don't have your e-mail anymore, and it's not on your profile (or maybe you're not the commenter I thought you were--and I mean that literally: perhaps I'm confusing you with/assuming you are the same as previous Knox-[X] commenter).

Now, I can go ahead and post a blow-by-blow deconstruction of the sequence as I see it or you can e-mail me (reader-AT-gmail-DOT-com) and I'll explain it there. Or not. Suit yourself.

Big Mike said...Reason: too many women look at Todd and realize that in their wildest fantasies they could never get a guy like him -- handsome, champion athlete, willing house husband whenever needed, and totally confident in his manhood -- to bother looking twice at them. And they are jealous.

She did something else - she flaunted her fertilty. At the age of 44 she gave birth to her 5th child yet she stills looks great and then a few months after giving birth she goes on a national campaign for vice President and does it with style and confidence.

Pretty impressive despite her mistakes and those of the McCain campaign.

I'd really like to see a sociobiological analysis of the female reaction to Sarah Palin.

I kind of think you have the sequence reversed. It's not that a) someone criticized Pailin and therefore b) found themselves categorized as a Palin-smearer.

Despite the general understanding that the media tried to assassinate Palin politically, and that they were totally in the tank for Obama, the fact is the sheer volume of the smears set the tone for most subsequently critical conversations.

The real discussions took place among supporters and sympathizers: Was she too populist, did she really adopt McCain's immigration stance, was she more a social con or a libertarian or, worse, a "compassionate conservative", etc.

Outside that arena, bias dictated the discussions. Take the issue of experience: It seems reasonable to say, "Well, the question of her experience is important, we should look at that." But it's not, really.

She was the only one on either ticket who had any executive experience (with the possible exception of McCain's military base stuff). Edwards and Obama have barely any experience at all, and the topic was hardly broached at all for Edwards, and dismissed for Obama, who was running for the top spot. (Althouse alleges that Palin cost McCain the "experience" argument with her, e.g., but I'm not sure what possible calculus she could have been using.)

Or take the whole pro-life/choice issue. There's no indication that she legislated--or had any tendency to legislate--her allegedly "extreme" views, while Obama was demonstrably willing to legislate his.

If smears are allowed to dictate the conversation, then you end up defending things like Michael's ridiculous dinosaur rants and Loafing Oaf's crime-against-God-aerial-wolf-hunting.

It becomes like the charge of "racist". If it's leveled at you and you address it all, you lose. You've legitimized it as an attack.

I suspect you and I are a) referring to a difference sequence, but if we are not, I suspect that b) we disagree as to the starting point of the sequence.

It's not that a) someone criticized Pailin and therefore b) found themselves categorized as a Palin-smearer.

I disagree with the premise of that sentence, and I also think it's counter-factual in a number of cases.

While I don't necessarily disagree with the portion of your comment referencing "experience," my take is different. I think the whole discussion there was way too circumscribed, too narrow, to begin with. I think the definition and scope of the word "experience" was constipated. So much time was taken up on issues of equivalence, or not, that this got lost.

I can't see much value in going to the rest. By that I am NOT questioning the value of what you wrote. I do see the value. I'm saying there's not much value in my going into it. People touch different parts of the elephant, and that's that.

When I was in college and was pledging the fraternity, they made me take everything out of my pockets, pull them inside out so the white pockets where poking out of my pants, unzip and take out my johnson and walk that way through the cafeteria. They called it walking the elephant.

"For Mr. Churchill is not a sensitive lens which absorbs and concentrates and reflects and amplifies the sentiments of others; unlike the European dictators, he does not play on public opinion like an instrument. In 1940 he assumed an indomitable stoutness, an unsurrendering quality on the part of his people, and carried on. If he did not represent the quintessence and epitome of what his fellow citizens feared and hoped in their hour of danger, this was because he idealized them with such intensity that in the end they approached his ideal and began to see themselves as he saw them: "the buoyant and imperturbable temper of Britain which I had the honour to express"—it was indeed, but he had a lion's share in creating it. So hypnotic was the force of his words, so strong his faith, that by the sheer intensity of his eloquence he bound his spell upon them until it seemed to them that he was indeed speaking what was in their hearts and minds. If it was there, it was largely dormant until he had awoken it within them."

Isaiah Berlin on Churchill. Obama seems to have an effect like this on African-Americans and Progressives, and to a lesser extent on many of the rest of us. If it takes an Obama to help those groups get their patriotism on, I say go Obama. The rest of us need them to get with the program.